A friendship interrupted - Haaretz

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Fri., November 09, 2007 Cheshvan 28, 5768

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A friendship interrupted

By David B. Green

tags: Church of Scientology

The Song Before It Is Sung, by Justin Cartwright, Bloomsbury Publishing, 277 pages, $25 / 17 pounds

If you haven't heard of the July 20 plot against Hitler, or of Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the German aristocrat at its center, the man who believed for a few hours on that summer day in 1944 that a booby-trapped briefcase he exploded in the presence of Adolf Hitler had actually killed the Fuehrer, you will soon. Tom Cruise - playing none other than Stauffenberg himself, who is a national hero in Germany - is set to star in a film about the plot, called "Valkyrie." When the movie was shooting on location this past summer, Cruise's participation stirred up significant opposition, because of his affiliation with the Church of Scientology, which is treated with great suspicion by Germans.

But before the screen version is released (it's due out next year) and its telling of the dramatic and tragic saga becomes forever imprinted on the public consciousness as definitive, it's worth reading Justin Cartwright's fictional portrayal of the episode, as told through his novel about the relationship between one of Stauffenberg's principal accomplices, Adam von Trott, and the Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin.

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In "The Song Before It Is Sung," those two real-life characters are called Axel von Gottberg and Eliya Mendel, but there is no question (and Cartwright has said explicitly) that their characters are closely based on the real-life von Trott and Berlin, who met and became close friends when the German was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford in 1931.

Berlin, of course, was the Riga-born intellectual (1909-1997) who became a legend in the world of letters for his clear, humanistic thinking, his political liberalism, his Zionism and a remarkable gift of gab. He was the first Jew to be elected a fellow of All Souls College at Oxford, a prestigious research institution. He and von Trott remained close friends and intellectual companions until the German, by then a working prosecutor in Hesse, wrote a letter to the Manchester Guardian in 1934 defending the treatment of Jews in the courts of the Third Reich.
Isaiah Berlin was incensed by his friend's letter, though it was unclear to him whether von Trott was revealing his own Nazi tendencies, or was simply naive. The German later repudiated the letter, but he also remained in his homeland, working in the Foreign Ministry during the war. At the same time, he participated in the Kreisau Circle (a group of aristocrats who secretly met to plan for a post-Hitler Germany) and, later, in the actual plot to overthrow the regime, for which he paid with his life on August 26, 1944, after weeks of torture and a show trial.

Today, there seems to be little doubt that von Trott was no double agent, and that he was sincere in his revulsion at the Nazi crimes and in his attempt to overturn the Reich, even if his sense of self-importance was exaggerated. The question is not one of mere intellectual curiosity, because what Berlin and other von Trott acquaintances in Oxford thought of his intentions determined their willingness to open doors for him in London and Washington, D.C., in 1939, when he went abroad to enlist support for the anti-Hitler forces within Germany. In his 1998 biography of Berlin, Michael Ignatieff (whom Cartwright has clearly relied on as a source) explains that Berlin's expression of doubts about von Trott had ripple effects in the British and American capitals, and may have indirectly contributed to the failure of the July 20 plot, since it prevented the Allies from offering support to the conspirators. Even after von Trott's heroic death, Berlin continued to see him as "self-romanticising - and politically ambivalent," as he is quoted by Ignatieff.

This would be material for great drama, even if Cartwright, a South African novelist living in London, had not added a romantic angle that has von Gottberg and Mendel both involved with the same woman, with the Jewish don losing her to the charismatic and manly German, who in the novel loves women with a lusty appetite that is no less naively romantic - and no more self-aware - than his politics.

'You were the most human'

An additional element that makes "The Song Before It Is Sung" especially enjoyable, and also adds poignancy, is the way it shuttles between past and present, by adding the completely fictional, parallel story of Conrad Senior. Conrad, a former Rhodes scholar himself, who was a protege of Eliya Mendel toward the end of the latter's life, found himself, on the death of Mendel, entrusted with the guardianship of his papers and letters. Mendel, who to the end of his life was haunted by the possibility that he may have treated von Gottberg unjustly (or perhaps even out of sexual jealousy), leaves Conrad a letter asking him to examine all the material relating to his relationship with von Gottberg and draw conclusions. "It is true that you were not my most brilliant student," he writes to Conrad from beyond the grave, "but I think, my dear boy, you were the most human," and thus can be trusted to properly judge his mentor's behavior. Mendel informs Conrad that both von Gottberg's trial and his actual death by garroting were supposed to have been filmed, although the scenes of his execution appear to be lost.

Conrad is up to the task, but his lenghty quest for the truth comes at the expense of his marriage, his self-esteem and his bank account. As the present-day story begins, his wife tells him she is calling it a day, as she has decided to take up with a fellow obstetrician from the hospital where she works. "For nearly ten years you have been telling me your ideas," Francine barks at him. "None of them, not a single one, has come to anything." A parallel is established here between the unhappy couple - he a man of ideas, she a woman of action who runs out of patience for her unproductive mate (they have had no children) - and the historical figures that Conrad is writing, one of them, Mendel, lived the life of the mind while keeping many of life's experiences at arm's length, whereas von Gottberg lived - and died - with all of his heart.

But the dichotomy between ideas and action is an unfair one, and Cartwright does not seriously suggest otherwise. Ideas are of deathly importance to both men, but each of them also ends up fighting the war in his own way (Mendel/Berlin served as an intelligence officer in the British Embassy in Washington). The real difference is that von Trott is a high-monded idealist, and Mendel, whose family fled Bolshevik Russia, is something of a cynic about human nature. And though he continues to love Axel even after the latter's death, Elya is far more troubled - as he should be - by the persecution and later murder of Germany's Jews than he is impressed by the noble death of his friend.

Eliminating loose ends

As for the author, Cartwright's sympathies are ultimately with von Gottberg, and he describes the progression of the plot against Hitler with sufficient detail and suspense that the reader may find himself holding his breath, in the hope that it may actually succeed. It doesn't - but it's hard not to wonder if the result would have been different if the officers carrying it out had indeed had outside help, and how many lives would have been saved if they had brought the war to an end in the summer of 1944.

Still, "The Song Before It Is Sung" is not anything like an indictment of the Isaiah Berlin character; what makes the book so touching is the author's affection and patience for all his characters, feelings it's hard not to share. Most lovable is the hapless Conrad, who wants desperately to do the right thing in every part of his life, but is so overwhelmed by events that he can do little but rely on his instincts to help him distinguish between wrong and right. Fortunately, his instincts are good.

It's not clear to me why Cartwright, the author of four previous and well-received novels, felt the need to tie everything up neatly at the end, as his elimination of each and every loose end gives the book's resolution an artificial feel, rather than the satisfying one the author presumably intended. But this detracts only slightly from the overall satisfaction yielded by "The Song Before It Is Sung," which balances ideas and action with greater success than its characters, and in the process, stimulates and entertains us, its readers

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